by Joanna Wylde
The Reapers Motorcycle Club had arrived.
There were probably ten of them total, dressed in leather and patches and so much pure badassery it radiated through the room like a shock wave. I halfway expected heavy metal theme music to start playing spontaneously. I’d met a few of them before—they had a chapter over in Cranston, which was only thirty miles from Violetta. Rebel’s riding club had hosted a barbecue last month, and the Reapers had come with all their assorted old ladies and hangers-on.
At the time, I’d been startled at how everyone treated them—almost like visiting royalty. Now I knew a lot more about biker culture, including the fact that in the world of casual riding clubs, true outlaws like the Reapers really were royalty.
Then their king walked in, and everyone got real quiet.
Shade.
He surveyed the bar, radiating a kind of cold, icy authority that gave me the shivers every time I saw him. When I first met Rebel, I’d teased him about having a crush on Shade because my new boyfriend couldn’t stop talking about the man. Then I’d met Shade in person. Now I got it. Rebel worked hard to make sure everyone knew he was a big, bad biker.
Shade didn’t have to work at it.
He just was big and bad.
According to Bone, Shade was the youngest national president in Reapers Motorcycle Club history. One of the girls at the barbecue told me he was a killer. Apparently he’d been arrested for murder, then gotten off on a technicality. Not that this seemed to bother her. She’d been all breathless and sighing, and later I’d spotted Shade pushing her up against a tree, skirt around her waist. He’d been devouring her mouth while she frantically clawed at his pants.
Apparently the whole murderer thing wasn’t a deal breaker.
Shade’s eyes caught mine, and I froze, feeling like he could see all the way down to my soul. In that instant, I completely understood why that girl had let him fuck her against a tree. The man radiated power, strength and raw sex. He was the biggest, nastiest bastard in the room—not to mention easy on the eyes—and deep down inside I just knew we’d make beautiful babies together. Too bad I already sort of had a boyfriend… Shade was so potent we’d probably have quintuplets or something crazy on the first try.
You don’t even want a baby, I reminded my quivering ovaries.
Jump him! Jump him and ride him like a cowgirl! they snapped back. Just think how sexy and strong he is. His sperm could kick Rebel’s ass and you know it!
“Go tell them the back room’s ready,” Bone said, breaking my trance. “Make sure they’re settled. By the time you’re out, I’ll have their drinks ready to go.”
“Me?” I asked, stomach clenching. Shade might be pretty to look at, but he scared the shit out of me—I’d decided about five minutes after meeting him and his club brothers that I’d best keep my distance.
Shade caught my fear from across the room, and his lip quirked. Not quite a smile. More like the amused, tolerant smirk a cat gives a doomed mouse. Made me want to run and hide in a corner.
But I had the feeling that no one ever successfully hid from Shade.
“Yeah,” Bone said. “You’ve got the experience and Sara hasn’t had a break all night. Suz just punched in but I don’t trust her in there with them—she’s looking for an old man, and her lips flap too much. Just serve the drinks, do what you’re told and if you happen to overhear anything, you keep your fucking mouth shut. Got me?”
I broke away from Shade’s gaze and turned to my boss. His face was serious. Dead serious. I swallowed.
“Are they—”
“Stop,” he said, cutting me off. “Whatever you’re thinking, just stop. Thinking isn’t part of your job here. Neither is flirting. Not tonight. You carry drinks, you take away empties, you hear nothing and you say nothing. Easy money, babe. Go earn it.”
He handed me a set of keys and gave me a small shove. I started across the room toward the bikers, ready to escort them despite the fact that they obviously knew exactly where they were going.
“Hi,” I said, smiling uncertainly. “I’m—”
“Mandy,” Shade said, eyes sweeping down my figure. I got the sense that he saw everything in that glance, from the red bra just peeking out of the top of my tank top to the fact that my ex-husband had gotten me arrested last year. “I know who you are. We met at the barbecue, remember?”
Oh, I remembered all right. He’d caught me by a belt loop on my jeans, pulling me just close enough for our bodies to brush against each other. Then he’d whispered I’d be welcome on the back of his bike any time.
Somehow, I’d managed to squeak out that I had a boyfriend.
Shade had laughed, running one finger under my chin, tilting my head up toward his. “That’s your problem, baby. You don’t need a boy—you need a man. Call me when you’re ready.”
Just the memory was enough to turn my face neon red. Thankfully, Bone was the kind of boss who believed a dimly-lit bar is a good bar, so hopefully it wasn’t too obvious to the badass standing in front of me.
“Great to see you again,” I told him, and I’m proud to say my voice didn’t squeak this time. “I’ll be your waitress tonight. Bone is pouring drinks right now.”
“Thanks, babe,” Shade said. “Lead the way.”
I started toward the back of the room, feeling the weight of his eyes the entire time. Well, either that or I was hallucinating, which was also a realistic possibility. The man was too potent for his own good—like catnip for women. Too many pheromones or some such. It really wasn’t my fault that he’d drugged me with his sexiness. Fortunately, I was smart and knew better.
(Fingers crossed.)
We reached the back room, and I fumbled with the keys to unlock the door. It wasn’t part of the bar proper, although there were tables and chairs back here. Bone used it for large groups and occasionally storage. For some reason I couldn’t get the key into the little hole, and the fact that Shade stood right behind me—radiating heat and pure fuckability, the bastard—wasn’t helping. Then his hand reached around mine, grasping the key and sliding it into the door with a slow, sure motion.
You know, that’s probably how he’d—
Shut up! I screeched mentally at my idiotic girl parts. You have a boyfriend and this guy is a murderer. Or something. Definitely something. NO quintuplets for you.
The door swung open. Apparently Bone had known they were coming, because the smaller tables had been shoved together to make one long surface, and the boxes that’d been in here yesterday were gone.
Shade caught my hips in his hands, gently pushing me to the side as his biker brothers filed in past him. I waited for him to let go but he didn’t. He decided to run his thumbs up and under the side of my tank instead. I shivered.
“I’ll be right back with your drinks,” I said, hoping Bone knew what they wanted because my brain had stopped working. The last thing I needed was a bunch of Reapers pissed off at me for fucking up their order. Shade didn’t drop his hands, just loosened his grip and lowered his head, taking in my scent.
My nipples went tight and he gave a low chuckle. Then he dropped his hands, brushing past me without a second glance.
“Sounds good, babe,” he said, stepping into the room. “Shut the door behind you.”
The evening got weird after that.
The Reapers stationed a guy with a “prospect” patch on his vest outside the door, and every time I came back with more booze he would knock on the door, check, and then let me in like a scene out of The Godfather. It would’ve been funny as hell if they hadn’t gotten so quiet every time I walked in. You know, the kind of quiet you get when you’re talking about where to bury bodies. Not that I had any reason to think they had bodies to bury, but…well, there was that whole rumor thing.
Oh, and Shade watched me every second, every time I was in there. Like, watched me. Enough to creep me out. I’d gone to Bone and asked him if I could swap out with Sara now that she was off break.
“Suck it up,” he�
��d said, crossing his big arms over his chest. “This is your job. Do it. If you’re a good girl, you’ll get a real nice tip at the end of the night.”
“What if I’m not a good girl?” I’d asked, unnerved. “I’ve never actually been very good at being…well, you know. Good.”
Bone grinned at me.
“Then you’ll get an even bigger tip.”
Somehow that didn’t make me feel much better.
“Now go back in there and make sure nobody runs dry. If the Reapers are happy, we’re all happy. That’s the way this thing works. Unless you want to find a new job?”
I shook my head quickly, unnerved.
“No, I need the work,” I assured him.
“What a coincidence, because I need a waitress who follows orders.”
“Stop scaring her,” Sara said, butting in. Bone glared at her and she glared right back, cocking her hip belligerently.
“Fucking women,” he muttered, turning away. Sara laughed, flipping him off behind his back.
“There’s a mirror behind the bar, remember? I saw that,” he muttered. “You’re both fired.”
“You love us and you know it.”
Bone growled something, then reached for a beer glass, deliberately ignoring us.
“He’s right about one thing—you need to get in there and make sure those boys don’t run dry,” Sara said, lowering her voice. “We can’t afford to piss off the Reapers.”
“Yeah, I get it.”
“Then start moving,” she replied, snapping me with the bar towel. It caught me off guard and I laughed, because no matter how scary Shade and his buddies might be, I really liked my job. It certainly wasn’t boring, and that was good, right?
Trevor wasn’t boring either, and look how that turned out. Remember how bad jail food tastes?
Ah, shit. I did remember. It tasted bad. Real bad. I’d just have to stay focused and not let myself get sucked into anything dangerous. Shouldn’t be that hard—it wasn’t like serving drinks was all that complicated. All I needed to do was pay attention and keep my nose clean.
Easy as pie.
Chapter Two
Rebel showed up around eleven, looking a little rough around the edges. He’d gone on an epic drinking binge with his buddies the night before, and while I wasn’t sure how late they’d been out, he hadn’t made it to bed yet when I’d texted him good morning. He was still cute, though, and when he walked in the door and grinned at me with those bright eyes of his, I felt that same happy tingle that’d attracted me to him in the first place. Not quite the same dance my girl parts did when they saw Shade, but it was still good.
Mostly.
Okay, so Rebel was a jerk and a dumbass—oh, and there was the whole potential cheating thing—but somehow he always managed to charm me out of my pants anyway. And it wasn’t like I was looking for someone serious anyway. No more real relationships for me.
Not after the Trevor debacle.
“Hey, baby,” he said, hooking his good arm around my waist, pulling me in for a kiss. Bone leaned forward on the bar, glaring at me pointedly.
Bone didn’t like Rebel.
This was funny because it’d been Rebel who’d helped me get the job here in the first place. Or at least, he’d been the first one to bring me in. I got the job on my own. We’d all been hanging around one afternoon when a group of nearly forty riders showed up out of nowhere. I’d seen the panicked look on Sara’s face—it was just her and Bone in the place—and felt terrible. I’d waited enough tables in my life to know she was fucked without more help.
Then I’d gone to the bathroom and found pee all over the floor.
Bone was slammed at the bar, Sara was running her ass off just trying to get everyone water, and I didn’t feel like wading through piss to get to the toilet, so I’d found a mop in the back and gone for it. Then I’d taken out the garbage (because it was disgusting) and things kept going from there.
Half an hour later, Bone noticed and offered me a job.
Now I worked here about thirty hours a week, which was almost enough to pay the bills, but not quite. On the other hand, the Pit had the distinct advantage of being fun while not being my old job at the gas station. The gas station where my sister’s ex, Handsy Randy the drug dealer, was the manager.
(Don’t even get me started on that one.)
The bar might be rough and tough, but I felt safer here because I didn’t have to worry about Randy’s wandering fingers. Oh, and Bone wasn’t a passive-aggressive cheating fuckwad who’d abandoned his family.
That was a big plus, too.
“How’s your night?” I asked Rebel. He leaned down and gave me another quick kiss. I pulled away from him because I’d already pissed Bone off once.
“Good,” Rebel said. “But I’m horny as hell. When’s your next break?”
“Why, you think I’m gonna blow you in the parking lot or something?”
“I’d settle for a hand job,” he replied, grinning.
“Mandy!” Bone shouted. “You got customers waiting in the back. Move your ass.”
“Boss man is calling,” I said, giving Rebel a wink. Rebel frowned.
“Who’s in the back room?”
“Reapers.”
“Really?” he asked, perking up. “Is Shade with them? He’s got a bike for sale that I’m interested in. I’ve given up on mine.”
“Oh, it would be great if you got something new,” I said, trying not to sound too excited. Rebel’s bike had been out of commission for nearly two weeks now, which meant no riding for me. We still hung out with his biker friends, but showing up in a battered pickup truck to a motorcycle rally felt sort of weird.
“Yeah, it looks really good,” he said. “You think I can go back there, maybe talk to him?”
“Don’t pay you to play with your boyfriend, Mandy!” Bone yelled, and I pulled away from Rebel.
“No idea, I just carry the drinks,” I told him. “I gotta run.”
Back at the bar, Bone shoved three more pitchers of beer at me, scowling across the pass-through as I grabbed a tray to carry them.
“You can do better than him,” he said, jerking his head toward Rebel.
“We’re just having fun,” I told him. “Got distracted, though.”
“Keep your focus,” Bone said, then his face softened. “The Reapers are important customers, babe. They own this state. You piss them off and I really will have to fire you, no matter how much we like having you around.”
I turned away, then remembered Rebel’s question.
“Hey, Bone,” I said, catching his attention again. “Not to push, but Rebel’s interested in a bike that Shade’s selling. Do you think it’s okay if he goes back there and tries to talk to him?”
“Don’t get involved,” Bone replied, his tone final. “Bring them drinks. Take away empties. That’s it. Trust me on this.”
I raised a brow because that sounded ominous, especially since Shade was trying to sell something. Wouldn’t he want to talk to a potential buyer? Then again, what the hell did I know? I’d been dating Rebel all of two months. Before that I’d never been on a bike in my life, let along hung out around a real motorcycle club like the Reapers.
“Okey-dokey,” I said, carefully balancing the sloshing pitchers as I headed down the hallway. The prospect knocked on the door when I arrived, poking his head in and then nodding for me to go through. The men were more relaxed now, lounging around the table while they laughed and talked. There weren’t any women with them tonight. This was unusual. I set one pitcher on each end of the table, then started snagging empty shot glasses. Shade’s eyes followed me, dark and hungry.
I tried to ignore him but it was hard.
His sandy hair was pulled back in a ponytail streaked blond in places from the sun. His arms were tan, and while I spotted the hint of a tattoo peeking out from under one arm of his ragged T-shirt, he wasn’t as marked up as most of the bikers who came in. His face was craggy, with just the faintest of li
nes at the corners of his eyes. They looked good on him. Shooting him a sideways glance, I tried to guess his age.
Early thirties, maybe?
A few years older than me, but still well within my range.
You’re not interested in him, moron, so stop thinking like that.
Avoiding his end of the table, I filled my tray and started toward the door.
“You missed one,” Shade said, his voice a low rumble. I looked over to find an empty tumbler sitting in front of him, remnants of a whiskey on the rocks I’d served earlier. To grab it, I’d have to either lean across the table and show off my boobs or squeeze in next to him. Neither option was comforting.
Not that he’d cop a feel.
Nope, not Shade.
He was above those kinds of games. But just being in the same room made me feel all weird and unsettled. It was one thing to joke with one of our usual customers or brush a hand across his shoulder. That was just casual flirtation—it didn’t mean anything. Shade made promises with his eyes, though. Promises I was afraid he’d keep.
You’d be welcome on the back of my bike any time, babe.
“Tray is full,” I told him, offering a tight smile. “Give me five and I’ll be back to take care of it.”
Turning away, I decided that I needed some air. Wasn’t it time for my break? Yeah. I’d tell Bone I needed a break, maybe go make out with Rebel in the parking lot for a few minutes. That’d set me right. Not that he’d be getting his hand job, because I had standards.
Low standards, but they still existed.
I stepped back out into the hallway to find Rebel standing next to the prospect, looking all eager.
“I’ll check and see if he has time,” the prospect told him, passing me as he ducked into the room.
“Is he in a good mood?” Rebel asked me hopefully.
“Who?”
“Shade,” he replied. “Who else?”
Jesus. He really did have a man crush on the guy.
“How would I know?” I said, annoyed. “Hey, I’m gonna go talk to Bone, see if I can take my break now.”